Journalist talks about why it's important to report on the secret sex lives of gay conservatives who are in bed with anti-gay forces

Why do they fight so viciously against the very sexualities they
practice?

And why do people decide to expose them?

Mike Rogers is one of the world's leading experts on closeted gay
politicians. Dubbed by the Washington Post as "the most feared
man on Capitol Hill," Rogers is an investigative reporter known for
outing closeted gay politicians who work and vote against LGBT rights.
He's the star of Outrage, the recent documentary inspired by his
investigations. His most recent expose is among his most controversial:
South Carolina Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer, the closeted anti-gay politician
who's in line to replace the now-infamous Gov. Mark Sanford.

Rogers is director of the National Blogger and Citizen Journalist
Initiative and a Media Fellow at the New Organizing Institute, where he
develops nationwide media programs. He is a former development director
of the Harvey Milk School, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and
GALA Choruses, and was director of major gifts at Greenpeace. Rogers
blogs at blogactive.com. Rogers is
also the executive editor of PageOneQ and director of business
development for Raw Story. He lives in Washington, D.C.

We spoke recently about how and why he outs closeted anti-gay
politicians, his standards of evidence, the psychology of homophobic
gay people, the difference between news and gossip, and more.

Greta Christina: You've made it a big part of your life's work to
expose closeted gay politicians who work and vote against LGBT rights.
Can you tell us why you decided to do that?

Mike Rogers: It's not really a big part of my life's work. I think
people have that misconception, because it's what I'm so well known
for. But my life's work, at least up until now, has been that of a
fundraiser. My politics are shaped by my work at a number of places,
but particularly the Harvey Milk School, where I saw young people who
were affected by society in such negative ways. What I saw was
unacceptable to me. Society was abusing these kids.

So from that point, I felt that everything I do in my career, I want
to do to make the world better. But it was only in 2004, with the
incredible frustration I felt over the use of marriage in the 2004
election--that's when I decided, "You know what? This is bullshit. And
I'm going to do something about it."

Why do you think outing has become such a big part of your public
image? Is it just because it's lurid? Why do you think that's how
people identify you?

Well, people love it. Everyone loves a good outing. It's
sensationalism. Why do people care more about who John Edwards had sex
with than they care about ending poverty in America? Why do people care
more about who Bill Clinton got a blowjob from than they care about
true health-care reform? Well, it's not boring all of a sudden. The
media's like, "Woo hoo! We have something fun and different and
exciting!"

It's sexy, and we're primates, and we care about that.

Right. It's not that people are fascinated by the sex lives of
closeted politicians. It's that people are fascinated by sex lives.
This is nothing new. It's been going on for a long time, but history
has denied it. People have trouble viewing history in color. So much of
our history is denied over sex.

Let me ask about your most recent outing: South Carolina Lt. Gov.
Andre Bauer. Why did you feel this particular story was
important?

First of all, Andre Bauer stood up and defended anti-marriage stuff.
When I looked at who put Andre Bauer into office, and the running theme
of his political career--this is a man who has been in bed with
anti-gay forces since he got into politics.

It's a personal call. There are lots of Republicans, including some
in Congress, who are closeted and gay, and I have no reason to out
them. They're not in bed with the religious right; they're not working
with a team of folks who are rabid homophobes.

Now, a lot of people object to outing on principle. Even with
closeted gay politicians who vote against gay rights, they still think
people have a right to sexual privacy, and to decide for themselves
when and if to come out, no matter what. What's your response to
that?

First of all: Regardless of what they would like, politicians don't
get to decide what stories about their lives will be reported on.
That's not how it works. Whether it's taking money from the treasury,
bribing people, whatever it is--the guy in office doesn't get to say,
"Don't write a story about this, but write a story about that."

In terms of who has the right to report things? No other community
is expected to harbor its own enemies.

I have no problem if these people want to be private--but then they
shouldn't be running for office. I wrote a post called "No more
'outing,'" where I pledged to replace the word "outing" with
"reporting." To me, "outing" is the indiscriminate revealing of an
individual's sexual orientation. I don't do that. I report on
hypocrisy.

Do people feel that if a member of Congress is arguing against
choice, and it's found out that they had an abortion--is that something
that should not be reported? If you find out that a member of Congress
is supposedly a Christian, and is having an affair--should that be
reported? For me, the answer is yes. It's a very simple thing ...
because they are beating gay people up.

I have yet to find a reason that Larry Craig should be able to say
that somebody who has sex with a man should not serve in the
military--and then he has sex with men, and serves on the Veteran's
Affairs Committee in Congress. That should be uncool with every person
in America. If nothing else, it shows such a steep level of something
in their psychology, that they shouldn't be one of the 535 people
running the country.

So what are your standards of evidence? The LGBT community is
full of gossip about celebrities and politicians who are gay, and a lot
of the time it's not true. How, as a reporter, do you distinguish
between garden variety celebrity gossip about who is and isn't gay, and
a credible story that's likely to be true?

Every reporter decides how and what they're going to report. When Sy
Hersh writes for TheNew Yorker that there are Dick
Cheney operatives in the Pentagon and that he can't reveal his sources,
people take at value whether they believe Sy Hersh is telling the
truth--that he talked to people.

So there are all these different standards. You can have folks at
the Atlanta Journal Constitution who destroyed Richard Jewell's
life, or Judith Miller who sent us into war on behalf of the New
York Times--without any proof, without anything other than one
person.

I take it much further. I'm a reporter. I research stories. Like
many reporters, the first thing that happens is a tip. Let me tell you
how many "tips" I've gotten: "I heard So-and-so is gay, I know he's
gay, I've heard it forever, I just don't have the proof." I've probably
gotten a hundred e-mails over the years that have said, "Lindsey Graham
is gay, I can't believe you're not reporting this, you're a horrible
individual." Well, everybody can say they know Lindsey Graham is
gay--but I don't know if Lindsey Graham is gay. I don't know if Lindsey
Graham has sex with men.

Now, in some cases, it's easy. A tip comes in, it's the voicemail of
a U.S. congressman looking for sex on a phone sex line. Eight different
tapes.

If only they were all that easy.

So in a variety of methods, I verify whether the tapes are correct
or not. They may not be. But the proof is in the pudding: whether the
proof is tapes, or whether I report on Larry Craig eight months before
he's arrested and the arrest becomes the news. In the cases where it's
easy, it's a no-brainer.

The other cases come down to: What do people know, when did they
know it, who said what, how did they say it. So what I do--what I did,
for example, in Larry Craig's case--I met various people who claimed to
have had sex with Larry Craig. Now, when I meet a gay political guy [in
D.C.] who says, "I had sex with Larry Craig," and he tells me specific
characteristics about Larry Craig's penis--and then I fly 3,000 miles
across the country, and I meet with somebody who's not in the political
arena, who had no connection to the guy in Washington, and he tells me
very similar things about Larry Craig's penis, despite there being a
five- or 10- or 15-year difference? That, to me, says something
else.

Exactly. But those people won't come forward. It's not that they
don't believe in what I'm doing, it's not fear of being disproven. They
won't come forward because they know that the right-wing garbage
machine will shred them. They will shred them from head to toe. Look at
the shredding Michael Jones went through.

We all know that it isn't just gay people who hide their sex
lives and then take political action inconsistent with those sex lives.
My question, with the people who are gay: How much of this shame and
denial do you think has to do with being gay ... and how much of it is
just about sex and sexuality? Like sex is something that's dirty and
secret, something you don't talk about? And how much is shame about
being gay specifically?

First time I got that question! It's a good one.

There is a pathology. In some places, it's probably about the sexual
part of it--that they're so ashamed of the sex. For others, it's
probably a matter of convenience. You want to be the governor of South
Carolina, and you're the lieutenant governor, and you'll never get
elected if you tell anyone you're gay. So--you make yourself not
gay.

I think there are different people, and I'll give you an example.
David Dreier is different than Larry Craig. In fact, David Dreier is
much closer to Barney Frank than he is to Larry Craig, in terms of the
psychology. David Dreier is a gay man, he has a gay relationship, he
has gay friends--but he has built this closet. He's what I call a man
on a journey.

I don't know if you know my case with Paul Koering, the state
senator? Koering's an interesting case because he was a gay Republican
who was not always voting for us the way he should have, and I felt he
was on a journey. And it was being on that journey that made me tell
him, "Senator, when you go in and vote next week"--he was voting on a
Michele Bachmann thing in the State Legislature--"don't worry how you
vote. I'm not going to out you." I actually expected him to vote for
their state marriage amendment. As a result of everything, he ended up
coming out against the amendment. The only Republican to do so. Voted
against it, walked out in the lobby of the Minnesota State Capitol--and
simultaneously came out on my site and to the Minneapolis Star
Tribune.

I think my work nudged his journey ... but even if he had voted
against us, I didn't think it was worth an outing, because I thought
his journey would get him where he had to be. For Paul, and he's talked
about this, it was the strict Catholic upbringing he went through in
Brainerd, Minn., that brought him to the closet. It was something he
had to overcome.

As opposed to Larry Craig. Larry Craig was never going to overcome
his closet. Ever. It's a dry drunk syndrome.

That brings me to my last question. In your experience, what
typically happens with closeted gay political figures after they've
been exposed? It seems like some of them change their attitudes about
LGBT issues, and some don't. What do you think makes that difference:
the difference between somebody who, once they're outed or are pushed
out, then they're out and proud and start working for our causes--and
the people who just get buried deeper in the closet?

What makes anybody different? What makes people be out, and then not
tell their parents? Or what makes people tell their parents, and not
tell their friends? What makes people live their whole lives, and then
come out when they're 60? Each person lives their life through their
experience.

When a guy is in college, and someone outs him to his family, how
does the guy react? Either, "No, Ma, that's bullshit, it's not true,"
or "Hey, I'm gay. Get over it." That's probably a question better asked
to a psychologist than to me.

: Greta Christina writes from San
Francisco. Read her Blowfish Blog at gretachristina.typepad.com,
where this interview first appeared.: Editor's Note: Sen. Larry
Craig, returning: BW: 's call at press time, said he does not
talk about the past and would not know Mike Rogers if he walked in the
door.